Juba was made a gladiator with Maximus by Proximo, who himself used to be a gladiator. They were trained by fellow gladiator and Barbarian Hagen, who also befriended the two. After numerous Gladiatorial Games in which all three and more men took place in, he helped Maximus in the fights. He and Maximus both expressed their longing for their loved ones, though Maximus' were killed and crucified by the Roman Emperor Commodus.

Juba assisted Maximus in trying to fight the Romans who were sent to attack Proximo's Gladiator School for the troubled, in which Maximus recruited several Gladiators to fight against the Emperor. Only Maximus and him survived the onslaught, both Hagen and Proximo being slain by the Roman forces. Juba later watched the match between the Emperor and Maximus, and when both died, he buried the figurines of his friends that Juba made and said that he will soon meet Maximus in the afterlife but "Not yet".fazk